Labor’s Spirit of St. Louis – Solidarity And Fighting Spirit In A Challenging Time

Call it labor’s Spirit of St. Louis. The solidarity of the AFL-CIO labor delegates gathered for their convention in St. Louis is up against one of the most challenging times in the history of the labor movement.

And for Dan Duncan, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Maritime Trades Department, the location couldn’t be more appropriate for a movement trying to uplift workers, their wages and their power. Because Missouri working families are using a voter referendum to rollback an anti-union law passed by Republicans in the state legislature.

[Dan Duncan]: “Here we are in Missouri. The epicenter right now of all the fights now for the right to work for less crowd. I’ll say it politely – I think that some other choice words have been used on the convention floor

They’re tryin’ to roll back cities who have increased minimum wage. Here in St. Louis minimum wage is supposed to go up to $10/10 an hour. And the legislature and governor said no, no , no – you can’t do that without us. You have to go back to the $7.25. So here’s people who had a pay raise for six months and lost it.”

Duncan says even in the teeth of vicious, well-funded and coordinated attacks on worker rights workers still have a spirit of resistance and a determination to struggle to regain those rights and improve the living standards of working families.

He says these ‘Right To Work’ laws are designed to destroy the financial ability of labor unions to counteract corporate attacks on working people and our unions.

[Dan Duncan]: “There’s been a lot, a lot of solidarity. We all know what it means. I come from Virginia. We’ve dealt with ‘right to work’ for decades in that state. And now they’re tryin’ to do – under Janus – ‘right to work’ for the public sector.

We know there’s a fight, but there’s a heck of a fightin’ spirit on the convention floor. And people are sayin’ OK, if we’re gonna fight, let’s fight. Let’s give it everything we’ve got.”

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